The Complete Four Just Men (39 page)

‘Can you come to dinner on Tuesday?’ asked Sandford.

Essley considered. This was Saturday – three days out of seven, and anything might turn up in the meantime. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I will come.’

He took a cab to some chambers near the Thames Embankment. He had a most useful room there.

Chapter 8

Colonel Black has a shock

Mr Sandford had an appointment with Colonel Black. It was the final interview before the break.

The City was busy with rumours. A whisper had circulated; all was not well with the financier – the amalgamation on which so much depended had not gone through. Black sat at his desk that afternoon, idly twiddling a paper-knife. He was more sallow than usual; the hand that held the knife twitched nervously. He looked at his watch. It was time Sandford came. He pushed a bell by the side of his desk and a clerk appeared.

‘Has Mr Sandford arrived?’ he asked.

‘He has just come, sir,’ said the man.

‘Show him in.’

The two men exchanged formal greetings, and Black pointed to a chair. ‘Sit down, Sandford,’ he said curtly. ‘Now, exactly how do we stand?’

‘Where we did,’ said the other uncompromisingly.

‘You will not come into my scheme?’

‘I will not,’ said the other.

Colonel Black tapped the desk with his knife, and Sandford looked at him. He seemed older than when he had last seen him. His yellow face was seamed and lined.

‘It means ruin for me,’ he said suddenly. ‘I have more creditors than I can count. If the amalgamation went through I should be established. There are lots of people in with me too – Ikey Tramber – you know Sir Isaac? He’s a friend of – er – the Earl of Verlond.’

But the elder man was not impressed. ‘It is your fault if you’re in a hole,’ said he. ‘You have taken on too big a job – more than that, you have taken too much for granted.’

The man at the desk looked up from under his straight brows. ‘It is all very well for you to sit there and tell me what I should do,’ he said, and the shakiness of his voice told the other something of the passion he concealed. ‘I do not want advice or homily – I want money. Come into my scheme and amalgamate, or – ’

‘Or – ’ repeated the ironmaster quietly.

‘I do not threaten you,’ said Black sullenly; ‘I warn you. You are risking more than you know.’

‘I’ll take the risk,’ said Sandford. He got up on to his feet. ‘Have you anything more to say?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Then I’ll bid you goodbye.’

The door closed with a slam behind him, and Black did not move. He sat there until it was dark, doing no more than scribble aimlessly upon his blotting-pad. It was nearly dark when he drove back to the flat he occupied in Victoria Street and let himself in.

‘There is a gentleman waiting to see you, sir,’ said the man who came hurrying to help him out of his coat.

‘What sort of a man?’

‘I don’t know exactly, sir, but I have got a feeling that he is a detective.’

‘A detective?’ He found his hands trembling, and cursed his folly. He stood uncertainly in the centre of the hall. In a minute he had mastered his fears and turned the handle of the door.

A man rose to meet him. He had a feeling that he had met him before. It was one of those impressions that it is so difficult to explain.

‘You wanted to see me?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sir,’ said the man, a note of deference in his voice. ‘I have called to make a few inquiries.’

It was on the tip of Black’s tongue to ask him whether he was a police officer, but somehow he had not the courage to frame the words. The effort was unnecessary, as it proved, for the next words of the man explained his errand.

‘I have been engaged,’ he said, ‘by a firm of solicitors to discover the whereabouts of Dr Essley.’

Black looked hard at him.

‘There ought to be no difficulty,’ he said, ‘in that. The doctor’s name is in the Directory.’

‘That is so,’ said the man, ‘and yet I have had the greatest difficulty in running him to earth. As a matter of fact,’ explained the man, ‘I was wrong when I said I wanted to discover his whereabouts. It is his identity I wish to establish.’

‘I do not follow you,’ said the financier.

‘Well,’ said the man, ‘I don’t know exactly how to put it. If you know Dr Essley, you will recall the fact that he was for some years in Australia.’

‘That is true,’ said Black. ‘He and I came back together.’

‘And you were there some years, sir?’

‘Yes, we were there for a number of years, though we were not together all the time.’

‘I see,’ said the man. ‘You went out together, I believe?’

‘No,’ replied the other sharply, ‘we went at different periods.’

‘Have you seen him recently?’

‘No, I have not seen him, although I have frequently written to him on various matters.’ Black was trying hard not to lose his patience. It would not do for this man to see how much the questions were irritating him.

The man jotted down something in his notebook, closed it and put it in his pocket. ‘Would you be surprised to learn,’ he asked quietly, ‘that the real Dr Essley who went out to Australia died there?’

Black’s fingers caught the edge of the table and he steadied himself.

‘I did not know that,’ he said. ‘Is that all you have to ask?’ he said, as the man finished.

‘I think that will do, sir,’ said the detective.

‘Can I ask you on whose behalf you are inquiring?’ demanded the colonel.

‘That I am not at liberty to tell.’

After he had gone, Black paced the apartment, deep in thought.

He took down from the shelf a continental Baedeker and worked out with a pencil and paper a line of retirement. The refusal of Sandford to negotiate with him was the crowning calamity.

He crossed the room to the safe which stood in the corner, and opened it. In the inside drawer were three flat packets of notes. He picked them out and laid them on the table. They were notes on the Bank of France, each for a thousand francs.

It would be well to take no risks. He put them in the inside pocket of his coat. If all things failed, they were the way to freedom. As for Essley – he smiled.He must go any way. He left his flat and drove east-wards to
the
City.
Two men
followed
him,
though this he
did
not
know.

* * *

Black boasted that his corporation kept no books, maintained no record, and this fact was emphasized the night that the Four had visited him unbidden. Their systematic search for evidence, which they had intended to use against him at a recognized tribunal, had
failed to disclose the slightest vestige of documentary evidence which might be employed. Yet, if the truth be told, Black kept a very complete set of books, only they were in a code of his own devising, the key of which he had never put on paper, and which he only could understand.

He was engaged on the evening of the detective’s visit in placing even these ledgers beyond the reach of the Four. He had good reason for his uneasiness. The Four had been very active of late, and they had thought fit to issue another challenge to Colonel Black. He was busy from nine o’clock to eleven, tearing up apparently innocent letters and burning them. When that hour struck, he looked at his watch and confirmed the time. He had very important business that night.

He wrote a note to Sir Isaac Tramber, asking him to meet him that night. He had need of every friend, every pull, and every bit of help that could come to him.

Chapter 9

Lord Verlond gives a dinner

Lord Verlond was an afternoon visitor at the Sandford establishment. He had come for many reasons, not the least of which nobody expected. He was a large shareholder in the Sandford Foundries, and with rumours of amalgamation in the air there was excuse enough for his visit. Doubly so, it seemed, when the first person he met was a large, yellow-faced man, confoundedly genial (in the worst sense of the word) and too ready to fraternize for the old man’s liking.

‘I have heard of you, my lord,’ said Colonel Black.

‘For the love of Heaven, don’t call me “my lord”!’ snapped the earl. ‘Man’ alive, you are asking me to be rude to you!’

But no man of Verlond’s standing could be rude to the colonel, with his mechanical smile and his beaming eye.

‘I know a friend of yours, I think,’ he said, in that soothing tone which in a certain type of mind passes for deference.

‘You know Ikey Tramber, which is not the same thing,’ said the earl.

Colonel
Black
made a noise indicating his
amusement.
‘He always
–
’ he began.

‘He always speaks well of me and says what a fine fellow I am, and how the earth loses its savour if he passes a day without seeing me,’ assisted Lord Verlond, his eyes alight with pleasant malice, ‘and he tells you what a good sportsman I am, and what a true and kindly heart beats behind
my
somewhat
unprepossessing
exterior,
and
how
if people only knew me they would love me – he says all this, doesn’t he?’

Colonel Black bowed.

‘I don’t think!’ said Lord Verlond vulgarly. He looked at the other for a while. ‘You shall come to dinner with me tonight – you will meet a lot of people who will dislike you intensely.’

‘I shall be delighted,’ murmured the colonel.

He was hoping that in the conference which he guessed would be held between Sandford and his lordship he would be invited to participate. In this, however, he was disappointed. He might have taken his leave there and then, but he chose to stay and discuss art (which he imperfectly understood) with a young and distracted lady who was thinking about something else all the time.

She badly wanted to bring the conversation round to the Metropolitan police force, in the hope that a rising young constable might be mentioned. She would have asked after him, but her pride prevented her. Colonel Black himself did not broach the subject.

He was still discussing lost pictures when Lord Verlond emerged from the study with Sandford. ‘Let your daughter come,’ the earl was saying.

Sandford was undecided. ‘I’m greatly obliged – I should not like her to go alone.’

Something leapt inside Colonel Black’s bosom. A chance . . . !

‘If you are talking of the dinner tonight,’ he said with an assumption of carelessness, ‘I shall be happy to call in my car for you.’

Still Sandford was not easy in his mind. It was May who should make the decision.

‘I think I’d like to, daddy,’ she said.

She did not greatly enjoy the prospect of going anywhere with the colonel, but it would only be a short journey.

‘If I could stand
in loco parentis
to the young lady,’ said Black, nearly jocular, ‘I should esteem it an honour.’

He looked round and caught a curious glint in Lord Verlond’s eyes. The earl was watching him closely, eagerly almost, and a sudden and unaccountable fear gripped the financier’s heart.

‘Excellent, excellent!’ murmured the old man, still watching him through lowered lids. ‘It isn’t far to go, and I think you’ll stand the journey well.’

The girl smiled, but the grim fixed look on the earl’s face did not relax.

‘As you are an invalid, young lady,’ he went on, despite May’s laughing protest – ‘as you’re an invalid, young lady, I will have Sir James Bower and Sir Thomas Bigland to meet you – you know those eminent physicians, colonel? Your Dr Essley will, at any rate – experts both on the action of vegetable alkaloids.’

Great beads of sweat stood on Black’s face, but his features were under perfect control. Fear and rage glowed in his eyes, but he met the other’s gaze defiantly. He smiled even – a slow, laboured smile. ‘That puts an end to any objection,’ he said almost gaily.

The old man took his leave and was grinning to himself all the way back to town.

The Earl of Verlond was a stickler for punctuality: a grim, bent old man, with a face that, so Society said, told eloquently the story of his life, his bitter tongue was sufficient to maintain for him the respect – or if not the respect, the fear that so ably substitutes respect – of his friends.

‘Friends’ is a word which you would never ordinarily apply to any of the earl’s acquaintances. He had apparently no friends save Sir Isaac Tramber. ‘I have people to dine with me,’ he had said cynically when this question of friendship was once discussed by one who knew him sufficiently well to deal with so intimate a subject.

That night he was waiting in the big library of Carnarvon Place. The earl was one of those men who observed a rigid time-table every day of his life. He glanced at his watch; in two minutes he would be on his way to the drawing-room to receive his guests.

Horace Gresham was coming. A curious invitation, Sir Isaac Tramber had thought, and had ventured to remark as much, presuming his friendship.

‘When I want your advice as to my invitation list, Ikey,’ said the earl, ‘I will send you a prepaid telegram.’

‘I thought you hated him,’ grumbled Sir Isaac.

‘Hate him! Of course I hate him. I hate everybody. I should hate you, but you are such an insignificant devil,’ said the earl. ‘Have you made your peace with Mary?’

‘I don’t know what you mean by “making my peace”,’ said Sir Isaac complainingly. ‘I tried to be amiable to her, and I only seemed to succeed in making a fool of myself.’

‘Ah!’ said the nobleman with a little chuckle, ‘she would like you best natural.’

Sir Isaac shot a scowling glance at his patron. ‘I suppose you know,’ he said, ‘that I want to marry Mary.’

‘I know that you want some money without working for it,’ said the earl. ‘You have told me about it twice. I am not likely to forget it. It is the sort of thing I think about at nights.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t pull my leg,’ growled the baronet. ‘Are you waiting for any other guests?’

‘No,’ snarled the earl, ‘I am sitting on the top of Mont Blanc eating rice pudding.’ There was no retort to this. ‘I’ve invited quite an old friend of yours,’ said the earl suddenly, ‘but it doesn’t look as if he was turning up.’

Ikey frowned. ‘Old friend?’

The other nodded. ‘Military gent,’ he said laconically. ‘A colonel in the army, though nobody knows the army.’

Sir Isaac’s jaw dropped. ‘Not Black?’

Lord Verlond nodded. He nodded several times, like a gleeful child confessing a fault of which it was inordinately proud. ‘Black it is,’ he said, but made no mention of the girl.

He looked at his watch again and pulled a little face. ‘Stay here,’ he commanded. ‘I’m going to telephone.’

‘Can I – ’

‘You can’t!’ snapped the earl. He was gone some time, and when he returned to the library there was a smile on his face. ‘Your pal’s not coming,’ he said, and offered no explanation either for the inexplicable behaviour of the colonel or for his amusement.

At dinner Horace Gresham found himself seated next to the most lovely woman in the world. She was also the kindest and the easiest to amuse. He was content to forget the world, and such of the world who were gathered about the earl, but Lord Verlond had other views.

‘Met a friend of yours today,’ he said abruptly and addressing Horace.

‘Indeed, sir?’ The young man was politely interested.

‘Sandford – that terribly prosperous gentleman from Newcastle.’

Horace nodded cautiously.

‘Friend of yours too, ain’t he?’ The old man turned swiftly to Sir Isaac. ‘I asked his daughter to come to dinner – father couldn’t come. She ain’t here.’

He glared round the table for the absent girl.

‘In a sense Sandford is a friend of mine,’ said Sir Isaac no less cautiously, since he must make a statement in public without exactly knowing how the elder man felt on the subject of the absent guests; ‘at least, he’s a friend of a friend.’

‘Black,’ snarled Lord Verlond, ‘bucket-shop swindler – are you in it?’

‘I have practically severed my connection with him,’ Sir Isaac hastened to say.

Verlond grinned. ‘That means he’s broke,’ he said, and turned to Horace. ‘Sandford’s full of praise for a policeman who’s mad keen on his girl – friend of yours?’

Horace nodded. ‘He’s a great friend of mine,’ he said quietly.

‘Who is he?’

‘Oh, he’s a policeman,’ said Horace.

‘And I suppose he’s got two legs and a head and a pair of arms,’ said the earl. ‘You’re too full of information – I know he’s a policeman. Everybody seems to be talking about him. Now, what does he do, where does he come from – what the devil does it all mean?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t give you any information,’ said Horace. ‘The only thing that I am absolutely certain about in my own mind is that he is a gentleman.’

‘A
gentleman and
a policeman?’
asked
the earl incredulously.

Horace nodded.

‘A new profession for the younger son, eh?’ remarked Lord Verlond sardonically. ‘No more running away and joining the army; no more serving before the mast; no more cow-punching on the pampas – ’

A look of pain came into Lady Mary’s eyes. The old lord swung round on her.

‘Sorry’ he growled. ‘I wasn’t thinking of that young fool. No more dashing away to the ends of the earth for the younger son; no dying
picturesquely in the Cape Mounted Rifles, or turning up at an appropriate hour with a bag of bullion under each arm to save the family from ruin. Join the police force, that’s the game. You ought to write a novel about that: a man who can write letters to the sporting papers can write anything.’

‘By the way,’ he added, ‘I am coming down to Lincoln on Tuesday to see that horse of yours lose.’

‘You will make your journey in vain,’ said Horace. ‘I have arranged for him to win.’

He waited later for an opportunity to say a word in private to the old man. It did not come till the end of the dinner, when he found himself alone with the earl. ‘By the way,’ he said, with an assumption of carelessness, ‘I want to see you on urgent private business.’

‘Want money?’ asked the earl, looking at him suspiciously from underneath his shaggy brows.

Horace smiled. ‘No, I – don’t think I am likely to borrow money,’ he said.

‘Want to marry my niece?’ asked the old man with brutal directness.

‘That’s it,’ said Horace coolly. He could adapt himself to the old man’s mood.

‘Well, you can’t,’ said the earl. ‘You have arranged for your horse to win, I have arranged for her to marry Ikey. At least,’ he corrected himself, ‘Ikey has arranged with me.’

‘Suppose she doesn’t care for this plan?’ asked Horace.

‘I don’t suppose she does,’ said the old man with a grin. ‘I can’t imagine anybody liking Ikey, can you? I think he’s a hateful devil. He doesn’t pay his debts, he has no sense of honour, very little sense of decency; his associates, including myself, are the worst men in London.’

He shook his head suspiciously.

‘He’s being virtuous now,’ he growled, ‘told me so confidentially; informed me that he was turning over a new leaf. What a rotten confession for a man of his calibre to make! I mistrust him in his penitent mood.’

He looked up suddenly.

‘You go and cut him out,’ he said, the tiny flame of malice, which gave his face such an extraordinary character, shining in his eyes. ‘Good idea, that! Go and cut him out; it struck me Mary was a little keen on you. Damn Ikey! Go along!’

He pushed the astonished youth from him.

Horace found the girl in the conservatory. He was bubbling over with joy. He had never expected to make so easy a conquest of the old man – so easy that he almost felt frightened. It was as if the Earl of Verlond, with that sardonic humour of his, was devising some method of humiliating him. Impulsively he told her all that had happened.

‘I can’t believe it,’ he cried, ‘he was so ready, so willing. He was brutal, of course, but that was natural.’

She looked at him with a little glint of amusement in her eyes. ‘I don’t think you know uncle,’ she said quietly.

‘But – but – ’ he stammered.’

‘Yes, I know,’ she went on, ‘everybody thinks they do. They think he’s the most horrid old man in the world. Sometimes,’ she confessed, ‘I have shared their opinion. I can never understand why he sent poor Con away.’

‘That was your brother?’ he asked.

She nodded. Her eyes grew moist.

‘Poor boy,’ she said softly, ‘he didn’t understand uncle. I didn’t then. I sometimes think uncle doesn’t understand himself very well,’ she said with a sad little smile. ‘Think of the horrid things he says about people – think of the way he makes enemies – ’

‘And yet, I am ready to believe he is a veritable Gabriel,’ said Horace fervently. ‘He is a benefactor of the human race, a king among men, the distributor of great gifts – ’

‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, and laying her hand on his arm, she led him to the farther end of the big palm court.

Whatever pleasure the old lord brought to Horace, it found no counterpart in his dealings with Sir Isaac.

He alternately patted and kicked him, until the baronet was writhing with rage. The old man seemed to take a malicious pleasure in
ruffling the other. That the views he expressed at ten o’clock that night were in absolute contradiction to those that he had put into words at eight o’clock on the same night did not distress him; he would have changed them a dozen times during the course of
twenty-four hours if he could have derived any pleasure from so doing.

Sir Isaac was in an evil frame of mind when a servant brought him a note. He looked round for a quiet place in which to read it. He half suspected its origin. But why had Black missed so splendid an opportunity of meeting Lord Verlond? The note would explain, perhaps.